Sebastian bounced, scraped, and slammed

  against the forest floor and the trees through which the monstrous limb

  weaved as it dragged him into the unknown.

  Then he stopped, as suddenly as he had been grabbed. The

  gangly hand lifted him up and threw him a short bit into the air as it

  switched its grip from his leg to wrap around his torso.

  He was held upside down about 3 meters above the ground

  by the long and slender arm sticking down from the canopy above. Below

  him were parts of Dolan’s clothes, torn apart and covered in blood.

  Horrified, terrified, petrified, Sebastian desperately

  looked around for whatever had caught him. There was nothing. Nothing

  except the impenetrable dark haze which surrounded the area. Only the

  faintest shapes of a handful of trees assured Sebastian that he was

  still in the woodlands and not been trapped in some dark void.

  There was a eerie calm in the air, as if the Overlord’s

  Domain held nature itself in check. The only sound present, besides his

  own pounding heart which beat faster and harder than he even knew

  possible, was the sound of his ragged breaths as he hyperventilated.

  Slowly, an enormous, monstrous face appeared from the

  dark haze in front of him. It looked unlike anything he’d ever seen—five

  dark red eyes, larger eyes on either side with smaller ones

  underneath them with a fifth eye in the center of its forehead. They

  were a strange mix of the eyes of a spider and a fly. Its jaw, ever so

  slightly, unfurled from within and bisected in the middle as it

  unleashed an almost gentle, chattering bellow.

  Sebastian’s heart, stomach, and every other organ in his body felt like they had dropped into this throat.

  He screamed, with every molecule of air in his lungs.

  The only words he could form were in his mind, What the fuck!? WHAT THE FUCK!? No, no, no, NO!

  He desperately clawed at the appendage wrapped around him.

  His attempt to pry himself out of its grip failed

  completely. Even with all his current strength, the fingers wouldn’t

  budge. Its skin barely even moved when he punched it with all his might.

  As he utterly failed to break free, a second gangly hand slowly

  appeared from the dark haze beside its face. It hovered there for a

  moment, as if it was savoring Sebastian’s dread, before it shot

  toward him.

  It carefully used the tips of its long fingers to grab

  his left forearm, unfazed by his efforts to resist or his attempts to

  fight it off, and it slowly, gingerly even, ripped it clean off at the

  shoulder.

  A noise escaped Sebastian’s mouth, originating somewhere

  in his gut, the likes of which no one would be able replicate save for

  if they experienced something similar themselves. A noise which was more

  akin to the sounds of animals than humans. One that the Silvervale

  Woodlands itself seemed to take delight in as it resonated throughout

  the forest, distorted by the overlord’s Domain.

  As Sebastian continued to scream in agony while clutching

  his shoulder, he watched as the behemoth slowly moved his torn-off arm

  toward its unfurling mouth and took a small bite, all the while staring

  directly at him as if amused by his suffering. As if his pain was the

  seasoning which made the snack worthwhile. If not for the horrifying

  reality of the situation, it might have looked comical for such a large

  monster to take just a single bite out of his comparatively small limb.

  Something snapped, not just the bones in Sebastian’s arm as the Overlord snacked but something inside him.

  His rage surpassed his pain and his fear.

  He reached for his sword, which thankfully had remained

  secured by monster’s hand while the bag had fallen. He pried the sword

  loose, cutting himself slightly in the process, and stabbed at its

  finger.

  The behemoth remained utterly uncaring as the sword

  failed to break its skin. It continued taking tiny bites out of his arm,

  almost casually, and watched him struggle as though he was some TV

  show, the evening’s entertainment while it snacked.

  Sebastian forced himself to take a deep breath and reached inward to bring forth an intent strong enough to cut free.

  With his second attack, this time also drawing upon his

  Sword Art rather than simply wantonly stabbing, he succeeded.

  His swipe

  severed—most of—one of the fingers holding him, at the cost of the sword

  shattering under the stress. The finger was now only attached to the

  rest of its hand by a sliver of skin and flesh.

  The shock forced its hand open.

  Thud!

  He landed on his back, his bag breaking his fall. The

  behemoth lurking above stared at its broken hand, awkwardly shaking it

  back and forth with its mostly severed finger limply dangling. There was

  no scream, no apparent anger, no reaction of any kind. It seemed that

  loosing a finger was nothing more to the behemoth than just another

  facet of the evening’s entertainment.

  Intergalactic Sword Art

  Stage: Foundation proficiency increased

  With no thought of waiting for permission, Sebastian

  ignored the alert as he jumped to his feet, grabbed his bag and ran. The

  loss of his arm made circulating his essence challenging, but since his

  focus was to follow the path for the [Fleeting Cloud Step] the essence

  mostly traveled along his legs and feet.

  The behemoth just stood there and watched its toy run away, slightly twisting its head like a confused puppy.

  Sebastian’s [Mind’s Eye] was still mostly suppressed by

  the behemoth’s [Tyrannic Domain], but the adrenaline heightened his

  already impressive senses. After he had reached some distance, a

  rustling sounded behind him. Instantly he knew what it was. The

  monster’s seemingly infinitely long, slender limb with that awful,

  gangly hand was coming to catch him once more.

  Panic erupted from the depth of his soul, but in the process, something clicked.

  In that moment of desperation, inspiration struck. He understood the final aspect he had been missing.

  Technique gained: Fleeting Cloud Step

  Status anomaly detected

  Analyzing

  Analysis complete

  Consolidating

  Skill consolidation complete

  Skill gained: Quickstep

  Adjusting status

  Status updated

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  Sebastian had already been running faster than anyone of a

  similar level ever could within the Overlord’s Domain, but now he moved

  through the forest like the wind itself. Except, unlike the wind, his

  running left no traces behind. The leaves on the ground remained

  undisturbed, as though his feet launched themselves off the mere idea of

  the ground rather than the reality of it.

  The behemoth’s limb was quick, but it failed to catch up

  to Sebastian with his new Technique. There was no doubt in his mind that the overlord catch him, if it truly chased after him, but he prayed he was just an insignificant toy in its eyes, not worth chasing if it meant putting in even a sliver of effort. Every passing second made that more likely to be the case.

  Soon, he received another [System] alert.

  Tyrannic Domain lifted

  He slowed, gradually, to a halt and collapsed to his knees before letting out a scream at the top of his lungs.

  Sebastian stayed there, for a few minutes at least, breathing and clutching the shoulder where his left arm should be.

  With a final deep breath, he stood up, looked at his compass, and dashed away.

  As he ran, he tried his best to calm down. His arm could grow back. No, it would

  grow back. He knew that much. Not only does this world have magic which

  should be capable of regrowing an arm but his own cultivation should be

  capable of fully healing him as well.

  The manual had mentioned situations like this. The

  physical body and the spirit body were intrinsically linked. They were,

  in essence, one and the same. And once your cultivation had reached a

  certain level, your spirit body was hardened to the point where it

  remained unaffected by the loss of a limb.

  So long as he continued to circulate his essence

  throughout his entire body, most importantly his missing arm, then his

  spirit body would remain in perfect condition. Slowly but surely, his

  physical body would be stimulated by his essence and the physical arm

  would regenerate to match his spirit one.

  It would only become a problem if he were to neglect his

  cultivation. Then the loss of his physical arm would gradually influence

  his spirit body, weakening the spirit equivalent of the limb until

  eventually it would simply fade away, never to be restored again.

  With every gust of wind grazing against

  the shoulder where his arm was supposed to be, Sebastian flinched, and

  his mind was brought right back to the moment where he felt the flesh

  tear and he was forced to watch his arm slowly detach.

  His efforts to calm down weren’t working very well, and

  he had a feeling that what had just happened would continue to haunt

  him. Perhaps he would find some closure when his arm was back, however

  long that might take.

  Simply knowing that it would grow back did nothing to

  help with the grief, and the pain, of losing it. He actively chose to

  direct that pain toward his ever-growing hatred of the Kingdom of

  Lumeria. Any thoughts of reason and justifications were drowned out by

  resentment.

  A part of him understood the inevitable fear of ruling a

  country in a world inhabited by monsters like that behemoth, to be

  beholden to their whims, and to the whims of those individuals whose

  powers rivaled those monsters, or perhaps even surpassed them. He knew

  that if he were in their shoes he would be desperate enough to do just

  about anything to muster enough force to survive and maintain some

  semblance of national security.

  However, that wasn’t—or at least should not have been—his problem.

  Since it now was, he would handle his, just as they

  handled theirs, with overwhelming power. Sebastian wasn’t going to let

  this hinder his cultivation, his rise to power.

  At the same time, a deep sense of weakness seeped into

  his bones. That monster might have looked somewhat like a bug, but he

  was the true bug here. The only way to crush his enemies was to allow

  himself the time needed to grow strong enough to do so.

  The woodlands were empty.

  As Sebastian ran west, in large parts along the path of

  the Overlord’s migration, there wasn’t a single monster to deal with.

  They had all fled when the behemoth migrated east. It was only a matter

  of time before the area would be flooded with monsters again, but

  Sebastian was grateful for the lack of encounters. He wasn’t certain he

  had it in him to fight anything at the moment.

  He ran for days on end. Barely resting, just taking an

  hour or so to cultivate, to gather the essence necessary to push himself even

  further.

  Three days later, the forest finally opened up to a grand, open landscape of rolling hills lining the horizon.

  Seeing the sun, free from the canopies of the woodlands,

  reminded him of his first morning in this world. Back then he had

  crawled out of a cave after he fought a goblin to the death earlier in

  the night. In many ways, this was the same. Seeing the sun back then,

  after a night of defying death, had been a powerful experience. This

  time, it was enough to make him collapse onto the ground alongside a

  single thought, I’m alive.

  Sebastian took a moment to lay there, the sun warming his face and the fresh open air flowing into his lungs.

  The only two things that could have made this moment

  better were if the hunters had been there to celebrate with him, and if

  he wasn’t struggling to ignore a truly staggering amount of pain.

  Eventually he got back up and checked the map and compass

  to try to find the quickest route to civilization. The map was no

  longer useful, he was now beyond its border, but the compass still

  worked without it. Once he had an idea about which direction to go, he

  took off once more.

  His new [Fleeting Cloud Step], as well as the System

  Skill he gained in the process, allowed him to move across the hills

  with ease. At some points he could even leap from the top of one hill

  all the way over to the top of another.

  This world had an impressive way of making you feel both

  as weak as an ant one second and as powerful as a god the next, and vice

  versa.

  It took him a few more days of travel, but he finally

  found traces of civilization. A welcome sight after a month of

  traversing the Silvervale Woodlands.

  He had finally reached the town of Celder.

  He decided to walk up to the gate rather than use his

  Movement Technique, so as to not startle the two guards posted by the

  entrance. Although his [Mind’s Eye] was back in full form and he could

  tell that they were a lower level than himself, it still felt

  appropriate to be respectful.

  “Halt!” one of the guards called out. They both brandished spears which they moved to point at Sebastian.

  “Identify yourself!” ordered the other.

  Sebastian stepped up with his hand in the air, both as a

  form of greeting and as a universal sign of being unarmed and coming in

  peace.

  “My name is Baz,” he said. He had taken a liking to the

  nickname Silas had given him, and it felt right to continue using it. A

  small way to keep them with him. “I got a bit too close the monster

  forest and ended up in a bit of trouble,” he said as he gestured toward

  the bloodied stump which used to be his left arm. “I was hoping there

  was a healer in town who could help me.”

  “Torquil’s Beard! That’s looks bad!” Seeing his injury

  earned him some sympathy. The two guards lowered their spears. “We do

  have several healers in town, the closest one is by the Hunter’s

  Association, but we’re under orders to bring anyone entering town

  without identification in for inspection. So you’ll need to come with us

  first.”

  The other guard looked at his colleague, dumbfounded.

  “Have some compassion! The man’s hurt. We can inspect him later, after

  he’s gotten some aid from a healer.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that,” the first guard said, rolling

  his eyes. “Protocol is protocol. We can’t just ignore rules willy-nilly

  just cause of some injury. For all we know he’s a spy who’s only

  pretending to be hurt.”

  “Pretending to be hurt!? Do you even hear yourself sometimes, how do you suggest one ‘pretends’ to lose an arm?”

  “Well how should I know, I’m no spy! All I’m saying is, we have orders, and we need to follow them.”

  “Life’s not all about rules and regulations you know. There’s this thing called ‘empathy’, maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  “Oh, here we go. Climb on up on your high horse, as usual. Make me out to be the bad guy for actually doing my job.”

  “I am fully capable of

  doing my job, thank you very much, and there’s no high horse here. You

  don’t need to jump directly into the role of victim at the first sign of

  conflict. All I’m suggesting is that we behave like decent human

  beings. Is that so bad? We are very much capable of doing our jobs

  without acting like jerks in the process.”

  “I don’t need to jump into anything, I am

  the victim here! I’m just trying to do my job—someone has to after

  all—and you’re acting like I’m some monster for it. I didn’t write the

  protocols, I’m just getting paid to follow them. Same as you, since you

  clearly need the reminder.”

  “Oh, I don’t need you to remind me of anything, you son of a bitch!”

  Sebastian clenched his jaw and took a deep breath.

  “Please,” he said, reminding the two guards of his presence, “I’m pretty hurt here, maybe we could continue this conversation elsewhere?”

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